Abstracts

Imports Demand in Iran’s Economy with a New Approach

 

 Hamid Abrishami, Ph.D.

 This paper studies imports demand on short term and long term basis in the Iran’s economy based upon cumulative methods of Engel-Granger, Johansen, Veshin sons and Philips-Hensen. Stability parameters are calculated by exploiting Kalman Filter CUSUM and CUSUMQ. The results indicate that the standard theorem of import demand based upon various relative prices and scale variables can not satisfactorily explain imports behavior in the Iranian economy. Therefore, in exchange limitation status, imports demand model is employed to distinct demand equation and analyse its defining factors.

 The elasticity of long term demand of import accumulation by all different definitions and approaches, as well as by Kalman Filter method is estimated with high degree of precision close to one, although it displays mild periodical behaviour.  The elasticity of short term revenue is estimated far greater than one, about 5.7. This indicates that the Iranian economy has been able to adapt for the required structures adjustments in order to diminish its dependency on imports. The estimation of imports price elasticity is not precise and is not stable during the sampling period. Nevertheless, it is expected that coexistence of devaluation policy with trade liberalisation has considerable effects on imports demand.

The present paper surveys the mutual influence of production and exports, with emphasize on non-oil exports and its effective factors by employing two-phase minimum square method. The results show that both non-oil exports and GDP have meaningful effects on each other but, the effects of GDP on non-oil exports is much higher. On the other hand, influence of monetary variables such as exchange rates and terms of trade, together with factors such as work, capital assets and imports on non-oil exports are calculated and analyzed as well. The relation and the extent of each variable’s effects are also defined.

 

Mechanism of Trade Strategic Policies for Iran’s

Industrial Exports

Akbar Komijani, Ph.D.    Seyed Hossein Mirjalili, Ph.D

 

Trade strategic policy is the trade policy to affect multilateral monopolistic decisions in the world market. This policy may be conducted in two phases: selecting industries and targeting the selected industries. The most important tools of trade strategic policy include imposing tariffs on rival imports and allocating subsidies to exports. In a mutual market both tools are employed. The working process of trade strategic policy in developing countries is through creating advantage. Suggested outlines for advantage making within the selected industries in developing countries include: profit making, labour mark up, energy intensity, cost effectiveness, technical know how and work force skills. On this basis, three chosen Iranian industries for creating advantage and expanding industrial exports are:  production of basic metals (Code 27), production of other non-metal minerals (Code 26), and production of chemical raw materials and chemical products (Code 24). There is a mutual market for these industries. The effective protective rate of selected industries is negative.

 This paper presents the minimum tariff rate and minimum export compensation to access a positive figure of a protective effective rate.

 

 

A Review of Relationship between

Export Diversification and Stability

of Export Earnings in IRAN

 

Anoshirvan Taghipour, M.A.          Afsaneh Mousavi Azad Kasmaii, M.A.

 

This paper investigates non-oil export diversification and its effects on export earnings stablization in Iran. For that purpose, we construct some measures for diversification and stability of each commodity group. The measures are: commulative export experience function, traditionality index and elasticity of export variance. We used the last measure for stability of each commodity group in total export and the others for diversification export, respectively. Then, we applied the  indices for the full set of 40 two-digit H.S. Commodity groups in Iran (1358-77) .

The results indicate that the majority of industrial commodities (about two-third)had positive effect on stability of export earnings, but the others did not affect the stability. Therefore, our finding show that adopting and implementing diversification policies are justifiable

 

Evaluation of Iran Exportable Agricultural Products to

Regional Organisations and Defining Target Markets

 

Majid Sabbaq Kermani,Ph.D.         Mir Abdollah Hosseini, M. A.

 

The objective of the present paper is to examine the possibility of trade and trade potentials of exportable agricultural goods to four regional economic formations including the {Persian} Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Group 8 of Islamic Countries (D-8), Economic Cooperation Organisation (ECO) and the European Union (EU) during the period of 1993-97. The general results of this research indicate that the members of the European Union have potentially higher consumption demands in all selected agricultural products. In addition, with regard to the indicators of “potentially high import capacity”, “unused percentages of capacities”, and “appropriate demand growth during the study period”, some member countries of the concerned regional economic organisations are proper target markets for 10 selected exportable agricultural products of Iran.

 Policy recommendations advocate that firstly, preferential tariffs be imposed on Iran target markets of selective agricultural goods. Secondly, further to quantity improvements, the quality of agricultural products, in particular health standards and regulatory measures of EU should be compiled. Market making efforts such as participating in specialised trade fairs, advertising and acquiescence to the international standards should be strictly applied. 

 

Distributional Effects of Technological Progress in Iranian Agriculture Sector: A General Equilibrium Analysis

 

Morteza Gharah-baghian, Ph.D.     Masoud Homayooni-far, M.A.

Green revlution have uneven implications for income distribution, which is due to growth of agricultural land productivity. There is the possibility that new technologies contribute to unfavorable income distribution, since irrigation systems are typically large and costly projects, The shorter the time of implementation of this projects, the greater is the distributional expasition. Since 1980 for the expasition of exogenons shocks, general equilibrium theory at micro level have been developed for relative productivity of sector specific factors in two farming systems (irrigated and unimated) and, also, the specificity of land has been studied in a number of general equilibrium models, In this paper, distributional effects of technical progress in agricultural sector are discussed in a small open economy framwork. The results show that in an unbalanced growth model, for two systems of farming, i.e irrigated and unirrigeted systems, neutral technical changes. Labor saving – capital using technology (Chemical technology), have favorable effects on the labor force and small scale capital. Biotechnology – chemical technology has the greatest effect on income distribution.

 

 

Stability Tests in Econometrics and Their Applications

 

Hossein Abbasi-nejad, Ph.D.         Gholam-Reza Keshavarz-haddad, Ph.D.

 

This article introduces the most popular tests statistics for stability of coeficients in econometrics. Main emphsits is on sheding a light on the advantages and disadvantages. of each test statistics and assumptions which have been based on. The present study consist of a wide range of test statistics from 1960 to 1999 for linear, non linear, simulation and single equations.

 

Testing the Iran Customs Dynamism by

Implementing ASYCUDA System

 

Mehdi Abzari, Ph.D.  Mostafa Ayati, M.A.

 The message of economic globalisation expands transactions of goods between countries and makes it inevitable to constitute appropriate foundations for the world trade expansion. This requires suitable customs to handle this immense trade volume. An effective and efficient customs, not only help the government to implement national and international measures, but also can generate a stable stream of income. On the other hand, it brings a vivid flow of in-out of goods that would also assist economic decision makers. One of the defined systems aiming at fulfilling this objective is Automated Systems for Customs and Management (ASYCUDA). Since 1996, Iran customs has launched ASYCUDA, the system recommended by the United Nations to facilitate trade.

 The present paper is derived from a research project titled “The efficiency of ASYCUDA System in Iran’s customs in the Eyes Staff and Forwarders”. The method employed in this study was elevating description.

 The highlights of the study results are as follows: From the view of forwarders ASYCUDA system does not have any effect on the expedition and easiness of their tasks. Both staff and forwarders see no effects of the system on custom services quality or sliding the fallacies down. Staffs view the system as having no effects on their skills. Forwarders see it as ineffective in bringing costs down.